Communist Party of Cuba

The Communist Party of Cuba (PCC) is a communist political party in Cuba that was founded on 3 October 1965. The party was founded by socialist revolutionary leader Fidel Castro using a Marxist-Leninist model, and its main predecessor was the 26th of July Movement, the revolutionary group which seized power from Fulgencio Batista's dictatorship during the Cuban Revolution in 1959. The party's membership grew from 55,000 in 1969 to 520,000 in 1985, and he party adhered to strict Marxism-Leninism and the traditional Soviet model. The party was reluctant in engaging in market reforms, although the loss of Soviet economic subsidies at the end of the Cold War forced the PCC to accept some market reforms. The party sent thousands of Cuban doctors, agricultural technicians, and other professionals to other countries throughout the developing world, and it supported socialist governments in Venezuela and Bolivia. However, under the leadership of Raul Castro, the PCC moved towards a degree of market liberalization, making it possible that Cuba could adopt an economic system similar to that of China.